On Tuesday 10 October, representatives from the CIHT regional committees gathered in Britannia Walk for the first Regional Officer’s Conference since pre-Covid. Each of the 12 UK regions as well as the Society of Road Safety Auditors were represented. The conference was led by CIHT President, Karen McShane, who welcomed all and was glad to see so many of our valued volunteers who had not been to Britannia Walk in quite some time. 
 
The conference included presentations from CIHT CEO, Sue Percy, various members of the CIHT Senior Management Team, regional officers, and Emma Duffy, Head of Events at the Stroke Association and Lambeth Council’s Kerbside Strategy Programme Manager, Tash Hartke.

There was ample opportunity for the regional representatives to connect with each other and to learn from each other about the successes, challenges and innovative initiatives in the other regions. Discussions included ideas about how to improve cross-regional working; how to leverage our partnership network for recruitment; and how to better connect new members with their regional committee volunteers.
 
The CIHT North East & Cumbria’s Future Transport Conference was highlighted as a successful regional conference from which the other regions were able to glean best practice in organising large scale events. This was reinforced by Emma Duffy’s presentation on running successful events. All the presentations have been shared with the regional committees and we hope they will assist our regions in continuing to deliver excellent local support to our members.

During the marketing and communications presentation, Daniel Isichei, CIHT’s Director of Communication, emphasised the importance of ‘completing the circle’ as reporting on the valuable sessions delivered for our members helps inspire them to participate in future events.
 
The event closed with networking drinks during which all the regional representatives got to know their peers a lot better, forged new friendships and partnerships, and exchanged ideas about how to further the mission of CIHT to provide better services not only to its membership, but to all who work within the highways and transportation industry and use the UK’s roads and transport systems.